New dean to lead growing College of Graduate Studies

Miriam Grant, Vice Provost of Research and Dean of the College of Graduate Studies

A new dean will welcome a record number of students to the College of Graduate Studies at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus.

Miriam Grant officially takes over as the dean of the College of Graduate Studies and the Vice Provost. More than 200 graduate students will begin their studies at the campus – the largest fall intake of graduate students in the College’s six-year history.

The College hosts a day-long orientation Aug. 30 for new graduate students. John Parry, M. Ed, in collaboration with faculty from a number of disciplines, will run a series of workshops for graduate teaching assistants in early September designed to give graduate students the skills they will need to lead undergraduate labs and seminars.

Carolyn LaBun, serving as the director of the new Centre for Scholarly Communications, offers various free workshops for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students focusing on topics such as writing for scholarly journals, preparing a teaching portfolio and curriculum vitae.

The Interdisciplinary Graduate Studies Sustainability theme offers its recently approved Perspectives on Sustainability in term two. This team-taught course allows graduate students to network with faculty participating in the sustainability theme to develop a nuanced and rigorous sense of sustainability that cuts across disciplines and faculties in its many different forms.

Teaching in Higher Education, led by Peter Arthur, director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning will be offered for the first time this fall. Eight post-candidacy PhD students have been selected to participate in the course focussed on taking a scholarly approach to teaching that will help groom the next generation of university teachers.